Sigal Samuel is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward. When she’s not tackling race or identity politics, she’s hunting down her Indian Jewish family’s Kabbalistic secret society. Her novel THE MYSTICS OF MILE END tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a dangerous mystical obsession. Her writing has also appeared in The Daily Beast, The Rumpus, and BuzzFeed. Follow Sigal on Twitter.
Pro-Palestinian activists hold a banner reading ‘Boycott Israel’ in Paris in 2010. / Getty Images Score this one in the victory column for BDS supporters and, much more broadly, for anyone who believes we should use language accurately — especially when we’re dealing with loaded terms like “anti-Semitism.” EBSCO Information Services, a major provider of…
The rabbinical school of Yeshiva University, previously said to be withholding ordination from a student who held a partnership minyan in his home, now says it will grant the student ordination. “An agreement has been reached and the student will be receiving Semikha,” Y.U. spiritual leader Rabbi Yosef Blau told the Forward in an email,…
Benjamin Netanyahu casts Hitler mustache on Angela Merkel / Marc Israel Sellem Ah, the hazards of light and shadow. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a press conference today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he didn’t mean to point his finger in a way that would cast upon her face a distinctly Hitler-mustache-like…
A night-time scene in the historic district of Córdoba, Spain. / Josh Nathan-Kazis It’s only been a week since Spain’s cabinet approved a law offering citizenship to Sephardic Jews, but Israelis are already tripping over each other in their race to apply. Between 700 and 800 have sent email inquiries to Maya Weiss-Tamir, an Israeli…
At the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, 24 items from the Iraqi Jewish Archive have just gone on display. I attended the February 3 opening of the exhibit, entitled “Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage.” It included a 16th century Hebrew Bible, a hand-lettered Passover Haggadah from 1902, and a 1967 school…
“I’d like to point out that you’ve all just paid $5 and come through the snow on a cold Wednesday night to attend an event with the word ‘sermon’ in the title,” David Zvi Kalman said, followed by a loud round of laughter. Kalman was addressing the 130 young Jews who had gathered in Brooklyn’s…
Scarlett Johansson has defended her decision to represent SodaStream, an Israeli company that operates in the occupied West Bank. The Hollywood starlet, who will appear in a Super Bowl ad for the controversial home beverage company, released a statement to the Huffington Post after coming under fire for speaking on behalf of the company. “While…
Chile’s El Palestino soccer club recently raised the ire of pro-Israel groups when it decided to redesign its team jerseys, replacing the numeral one with a one-state map of Palestine. Because they show the entire map of Israel as Palestine, these jerseys effectively erase Israel, making it seem like the state doesn’t exist. In a…
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